


dime a dozen

by williamsage42



Series: hang-ups [4]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Existential Angst, Existential Crisis, Gen, Okay Ending, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, in the second chapter, kind of, listen, this story is pretty typical garden variety suicidal connor, very similar to the other ones by other people
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-26
Updated: 2019-04-01
Packaged: 2019-12-18 07:44:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18245447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/williamsage42/pseuds/williamsage42
Summary: And if he thought about it every time he saw the bridge, every time he crossed a road, every time he noticed the faint outline of his thirium pump regulator on his bare chest, removable… it didn't mean anything. He'd never actually do it. Not really. It wasn’t like that. There was nothing wrong with him.((no relation to other works in the series))





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I know I have Precious to be getting on with but I have an essay on hamlet and an annotated bibliography for psych due AND two big tests, so
> 
> also this is a quick piece that's easier to write than precious and involves less flashbacks

There was nothing wrong with him. 

 

He felt he didn’t have the right to speak to somebody about it, not because of what he was, but because of the fact that what he experienced was nothing. It was unimportant, and many others had experienced so much worse, in all likelihood. 

 

And he thought, even as he planned the different ways he could do it, meticulously documenting every fact around him, cautiously going over every possible preconstruction, that he wasn’t going to speak about it and make it seem like a big deal. Because it wasn’t. It wasn’t as if he was actually going to do it. Other people might, but he was fine. He wasn’t going to. 

 

On the 8th of February, he was alone in the house for a brief period of time. He thought a lot about how he could do it then. As he picked up the knife, he considered every aspect of it. It was large, to some possibly heavy, and it was recently sharpened. 

 

And really, there was nothing wrong with him. It wasn’t that bad. His expression remained methodically blank as he rolled up the sleeve of his shirt. Honestly, nothing wrong. He cancelled the preconstructions of stabbing it into various parts of his body. 

 

Really, there was nothing wrong. It wasn’t that bad. It could be so much worse. 

 

He pressed the edge to his skin, and held it there, increasing pressure bit by bit until he felt the artificial coating was seconds away from splitting under the force, and then he pulled it away. There was no mess, no thirium, nothing. 

 

He didn’t even break the skin. See, it wasn’t so bad. There were humans, many of them quite young, that ran around with deep angry scars covering themselves. Oh, so many humans. They didn’t hold back. But he did.  ~~ He was weak. ~~ He was fine. See, he wasn’t like those humans. There was nothing so wrong with him that he would cut himself properly. 

 

It was more like… teasing, really. 

 

And if he thought about it every time he saw the bridge, he crossed a road, he noticed the faint outline of his thirium pump regulator on his bare chest… it didn't mean anything. He’d never actually  _ do it.  _ Not  _ really.  _ It wasn’t like that. 

 

But that’s why he couldn't speak about it to anyone; because he knew they’d misunderstand. They’d think it was a problem. That he was depressed, or suicidal, or something along those lines. That was ridiculous. Of course he wasn’t; he was fine. 

 

Really, how could there be anything wrong? He was too scared to actually do it, even if the preconstructions ran constantly in the back of his mind--which they  _ did,  _ but it wasn’t like he was paying attention to it--so he was fine. Not like  _ those  _ humans. He was too scared to even put a blade into his arm, not after the update that made them feel pain. 

 

But he did like the blade, though. Even if he couldn’t hurt himself with it. Sometimes he’d run it over his skin on different parts of his body, fascinated by the sensation of cool, and the gentle goosebumps that appeared; oh how realistic a machine he was, to even have  _ that.  _

 

A perfect imitation. 

 

He never drew thirium. Never got beyond the skin. The occasional scratches were shallow enough for his self-healing program to eradicate in seconds. When he did cut himself, it was an accident, always, that had him jerking the knife back  ~~ instinctually ~~ by order of his self-preservation protocol. 

 

And then he would stare at the blue he was leaking, and it felt like his mind was consumed by static. How he wished, sometimes, he had the willpower to just…  _ stop, you don’t wish. You don't.  _

 

It was when he was alone that he was  ~~ frightened ~~ annoyed by the preconstructions. If he were to do it then, nobody would see, nobody would save him. And it was that thought, at those times, that made him feel like he was drifting… backseat passenger to his own existence. 

 

On the 12th of February, he found himself standing on the edge of a building. He watched the chance of falling tick upward, one percent at a time, as his unease around heights fed his coordination program a string of increasingly faulty gyroscopic data. 

 

The streets of Detroit were barren and empty since the revolution, save for those faithful humans and androids who could not be driven from home. The police were still operating, but there was nobody out to see Connor, so nobody out to call them. 

 

He didn’t jump. And when Lieutenant Anderson asked where he’d been, he lied. “A walk.” He couldn’t tell him. It would be his secret. His secret like when he removed his thirium pump regulator for five seconds before he clicked it back in when he showered that night. His secret like the blade. 

 

His secret, like when on the 15th of February, he let his focus linger on the ‘YES’ option after the ‘ARE YOU SURE?’ prompt that popped up when he initiated a full system shutdown, before he clicked ‘NO’. 

 

He was commended, in the workplace and among friends (or  _ friend, singular,  _ as it were) for his optimism, his humour, his seemingly carefree disposition and good advice. People told him they liked the way he thought, and it was always nice to hold a discussion with him. 

 

Connor didn't like the way he thought. He liked it worst of all when on the 16th of February he was at a scene, running so many of his secret, dangerous pre-constructions at once that it took him a full 30 seconds to notice Hank calling his name. 

 

“Yes?” He asked. 

 

“Jesus, Con, you really spaced out there, didn't you?” Hank grumbled. 

 

“I have no doubt that what you’re currently experiencing is somewhat akin to the way Sumo feels, when you refuse to leave the couch to feed him in the evenings.” Connor played it off, a smile described by Reed as ‘fucking cheeky’ on his face and a calm informality about his body language and tone. 

 

The concern that Hank had been displaying immediately dissipated. Good. 

 

Secret. 

 

He had a little notebook, hidden under his mattress, where he wrote all of the bad thoughts. There were pages of meticulous, intricate descriptions of emotions, recounts of events, step-by-step plans of how he ~~would~~  could do it. For every neat page, though, there was a page of chaos akin to the scribblings of the deviants he’d caught before the revolution. Except these pages weren’t filled with ‘ra9’ ramblings. They were coated in things like ‘glorified toaster’ and ‘fucking freak’ and ‘plastic’ and a thousand times over, ‘bad’, ingrained into every inch of the paper. 

 

When he did this, when he pressed his pen deep into the page, going over every line tenfold, making deep, aggressive marks in the paper. But his face remained stoic, his expression neutral, his rate of artificial breathing calm and steady. Like those times he was alone, when he did this he felt almost intoxicated, as if merely an observer to his own actions and the world around him. 

 

On the 18th of February, Hank decided to change Connor’s bedding, and found the book. But he didn’t read it. He was only just opening it when Connor marched into the room and snatched it from him. 

 

“Easy! What is that, your fucking burn book or something?” Hank asked. 

 

Connor tilted his head to the side. “It is a compilation of… personal notes.”

 

“Uh-huh, a diary,” Hank said, and then catching Connor’s peeved expression lifted his hands in a play-surrender. “I’m not going to read it! I have no interest in telling the whole school about your secret crush or something.”

 

Despite Hank’s promise, Connor found a different hiding spot for the book. 

 

Crisis averted. All in all, Connor judged things to be going well. Life was good, the world was beautiful, and the thoughts, the precontructions and the tendencies… could be ignored. 

 

But it all fell apart on Sunday the 20th. 


	2. end

Of all Connor’s experiences, he would count getting beaten up by anti-androiders one of the worst. The humans had crowded him, and made him feel scared. And then they started hitting him, knocking him to the ground and continuing to deliver relentless blows until they were satisfied. 

 

Connor could still hear their words resonating in his head, like a foul thing he couldn’t wash away. The insults were remarkably similar to the ones he wrote in his book--freak, plastic, fake, undeserving. 

 

The vestiges of the experience still sent shivers through his body. He didn’t need to try in order to keep his expression blank. Less blank and more what Hank would call ‘dead inside’, but it was all the same thing, really. There was nothing wrong with Connor, though. Nothing at all. 

 

He was alone on the streets now, and the sun had set. The thoughts bounced around his head as he backlogged the heating system that was trying to keep his thirium from freezing, in favour of running his secret pre-constructions in the background. 

 

He wondered about things. He wondered what the point of life was. All it seemed to be was an anthology of negative emotions. He wondered what the positive ones felt like, he wondered how long they lasted. Was the good worth the bad? It never seemed like it. 

 

Maybe Connor didn't understand, because he wasn't human. It seemed to many people that the problem with androids was that they weren't human. Maybe there was some weight to all that. 

 

Connor, as he thought and wandered, wondered idly why people don't just go around killing themselves. 

 

It seemed a fair enough solution. Life was hard, and unfair, and incredibly so-so. What exactly motivated these people to keep on clinging to the surface of this substandard rock hurtling through space? Why didn't they just… let go? 

 

Death would be nothing, and end, finality,  _ relief  _ from a relentless unpleasantness known as daily life. 

 

Connor’s connection to the network provided him with a quote from a centuries-old play: “how weary, stale, flat and unprofitable seem to me all the uses of this world”. 

 

What Connor was feeling wasn't  _ new.  _ It wasn't even rare. People felt like this all the time, didn't they? Didn't they have thoughts like his every day, and they walked through the streets? Wasn't it something that was there but not discussed? 

 

Maybe it wasn't. 

 

Connor realised, maybe he wasn't ok. Maybe he never had been. Maybe he was the odd one out-  _ no. I'm fine. Everything is fine, this is alright, this is normal.  _

 

When would this be over? When would it end? Was it just a spiral of pointlessness that resolves itself to nothing the moment his core processor wipes itself, shuts down.

 

Was everything he'd ever done, every second he'd ever lived, all pointless. Every human, every android on earth all follow different paths to the same destination. Death, and being forgotten in the end. 

 

How many people have died already, and been forgotten, that we don't even know their names as they slowly got pushed out of the history books? How many thousands of people lived their buzzing little lives like animals, insects, never to be remembered ever? Never even in the history books to begin with? 

 

So  _ what was the point?  _ What was this? That people crawled over the earth like a contagion, using and using until there was nothing more, and the planet burned and in the grand scheme of the universe they weren't even a notable digit.

 

Just nothing. It all amounts to nothing. 

 

There was so many thoughts dripping, squirming, scrambling through his processors that he could barely do anything else, and thus he tripped and fell to the ground, staying there was his hands ran through his hair.

 

There were so many multitudes of ways that life was pointless that his mind could conjure up, there were too many to give introspection to each individual one. It was a flurry of incoherency. 

 

He pushed himself up and staggered onwards. He couldn't do this, he just wanted it to stop, stop, stop, stop, stop- 

 

His stress levels piqued and he didn't even take note of the numbers flashing in his vision, the warnings were all useless. He didn't care. 

 

Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop-

 

Why was he here? How had he gotten here? The edge of the bridge he'd passed a thousand times, thinking about doing it every single one of them. 

 

He stood precariously on the railing, knowing full-well he would most certainly fall if he was human. 

 

Wouldn't it be nice? To make the droning, endless grate of life stop? And with so little effort? Just a step, a single jump, and it would all go away and he would never have to worry again. Never feel whatever this was,  _ ever again.  _

 

Never feel anything ever again. That sounded peaceful. It sounded blissful. It sounded like nothingness, and he was begging for it like a desperate human. 

 

He saw the light and felt the breeze and vibration of the car going past behind him. It ruffled his clothes slightly, and he heard the screeching tyres. 

 

By the sound and the light he knew the car was coming to an abrupt turn and stop. He heard a door open and slam shut. 

 

“Connor, what the fuck?”

 

“Hello, Hank,” Connor said. He put on the easy smile, and his abilities as an android letting him move his feet and turn to face Hank, with his whole being, without skipping and falling. 

 

The lieutenant looked horrified. 

 

“What are you doing?” Hank asked slowly, with the practiced detached yet concerned tone of someone in police work. Other people used that tone, too. Mainly doctors, when they told a person that a loved one was dying. 

 

“Thinking,” Connor said, shifting and almost losing balance on the railing for a split second. He caught himself. 

 

“Get down. Please.”

 

“No, I don't think I will,” Connor said, conversational tone and smile making Hank want to scream.

 

What had gone wrong? What was Connor doing? Why? 

 

“What are you thinking about?” Hank asked.

 

“The inevitable spiralling pointlessness of existence,” Connor answered, turning back around to face death again. 

 

“Can you think about that on the ground?” Hank begged.

 

“When I reach the ground I won't be able to think anymore,” Connor said.

 

“Connor, why are you doing this? Weren't you happy only earlier?” 

 

“How would you know?”

 

“You were smiling, laugh-” Hank said, but he was cut off. 

 

“I can make my face do anything I want, Lieutenant. It's a simple matter of a manual override.” Connor let some of the bitterness leak into his tone. 

 

“Connor, what about all the things you'd- what about the good things?” Hank asked. 

 

“What good things? This has been it since I woke up.  _ This  _ and pretending to be like everyone else.” Connor didn't care if Hank found out now. After all, it wouldn't affect him once he was dead. 

 

“Please, I can't lose anyone else, I can't- don't do this to me,” Hank pleaded with Connor. 

 

“That's a rather selfish way of looking at it. You can't do it without me… I can't do it at all. Why don't we go together?” Connor felt words he didn't mean, yet didn't not mean, come out of his mouth like he wasn't the one saying them. Like he had no control whatsoever. 

 

“You're offering- Connor can you even hear yourself? You're practically offering to kill me.”

 

“I'm telling you I'm going to kill  _ myself.  _ Whether you live or die is a decision I'm not going to make for you, as long as you don't try and make it for me.” 

 

Hank took a step towards Connor, and another, and another. “Please don’t,” he said. 

 

“Sorry,” Connor said, and then his LED flashed, already having been a steady crimson it started to blink rapidly. He shifted his weight, letting himself go, and all was dark. 

 

\---

 

“Connor? CONNOR?” 

 

Connor opened his eyes. He was on the bridge, on the ground, lying there. 

 

“Connor, thank fuck I caught you, never do that again please, God, fuck, Connor-” 

 

Hank was holding him. 

 

“I'm not losing a kid again. I'm going to make you want to stay in the world, Connor. I’m going to find a way for you to be happy.” 

 

“Maybe that would be nice,” Connor said. “I hope it is. I never really wanted to leave, I just wanted it to stop.” 

 

“I know, kid. I know.” 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alright im sorry  
> i know this is very typical of suicidal connor fics   
> the bridge thing? way overdone  
> still, i like to think my one has some novelty to it

**Author's Note:**

> suffer with me


End file.
